Organized Enough

Organized Enough by Amanda Sullivan, 228 pages

It seems like every five minutes, there's a new book coming out, spelling out all the ways to reduce clutter and organize your life. Many of these are about downsizing, getting rid of all the things that don't bring you joy, or simply cutting out everything that's not a straight-up necessity. And after reading all of these books, I always think, "Nice idea, but that's never going to work in real life." Or perhaps, "Yeah, that's great and all, but this would only work for a wealthy single person with no kids and a ton of willpower."

Organized Enough is different. A professional organizer who has kids of her own, Sullivan realizes and acknowledges that those perfectionist organization plans are intimidating and therefore unlikely to happen. Instead she urges her readers to work on being just organized enough: don't worry about sorting your socks by color or separating out all the different sized Legos in different containers — just get all your socks in one place, and the Legos in a bin. Yes, this book does suggest weeding out belongings, but Sullivan's suggestions have less to do with joy than with functionality — what purpose does that item serve in your life? Do you have seven of them when one will do?

Unlike most organization books, I closed this book thinking that I could actually do this stuff. It may take time and a bit more willpower than I've exercised in the past, but it's innately doable, even for a book-hoarding mom like me. And that's awesome.